376 
On the Use of the JVater-DriU. 
16 aci'es, and 20 acres respectively, were lands which, previously 
to the introduction of the water-drill, Avould scarcely grow oats 
at all, and consequently they were seldom or never sown. On 
two or three different occasions when I had made the attempt 
a crop of about 5 quarters per acre was the result; whereas this 
year, with the water-drill, I believe I have, in two out of the three 
fields just named, from 8 to 9 quarters per acre. These lielcls 
consist of a light and rather dusty soil, with the gravel near the 
surface, and in dry seasons grow a very small bulk of straw. 
The water-drill meets this difficulty. On these soils it has 
enabled me to change my rotation, and to adopt a five-course shift 
of coleseed, oats, wheat, seeds, wheat ; whereas formerly I could 
only grow wheat after the coleseed, and was consequently driven 
to fallow every four years upon land which did not otherwise 
need it, and was also subjected to the inconvenience and loss 
occasioned by being compelled to eat off all my coleseed before 
the end of October — wheat on these soils universallv failing if 
sown later. 
I now grow my coleseed and oat crops on these lands exclu- 
sively with the water-drill and artificial manure, reserving the 
whole of the farmyard manure for the wheat crops, and the 
system appears to succeed well. I should observe that in 
feeding off these coleseeds I always give the sheep either linseed 
or cotton-seed cake, or some kind of corn. 
This year I have sown 24 acres of peas with the water-drill ; 
and from the growth of the crop through all its stages infer that 
it will be found practically advantageous to use it fortius descrip- 
tion of crop also. 
Last spring I sowed 2 acres of carrots with the drill, using 6 
coulters and putting on 2 cwt. of superphosphate per acre. The 
crop was an excellent one, estimated by competent judges at over 
25 tons per acre, and I think fully this quantity was realised, 
for I had 50 large loads — as much as two horses in a cart could 
pull out of the field. 
When the water-drill was first introduced, and its influence 
upon the early growth of green crops was recognized, it was 
thought and said by many, that this excessive growth would not 
be continued, but that the manure would soon become exhausted ; 
and tliat the plant, when approaching maturity, and most in 
need of sustenance and support, would fall short of nourishment, 
and evince symptoms of premature decline and decay. But 
in my own experience these theories, prompted by fear and 
founded upon mere surmise, have not in any one instance been 
confirmed by fact. A reference to either of the foregoing tables 
will clearly show that tlie rapid progress maile in the early 
